Justice Edwin Cameron should withdraw his candidacy for re-election as chairman of the Wits University Council, three student organisation said yesterday.

Justice Edwin Cameron should withdraw his candidacy for re-election as chairman of the Wits University Council, three student organisation said yesterday.

In a joint statement, the SA Students' Congress, the Young Communist League and the university's Students' Representative Council said transformation at the university had been too slow over the last 10 years.

Cameron, the chairman of the council for 10 years, had "come to run the university like his personal business", the organisations said.

They said the university council, under Cameron's leadership, had played an "overlapping role, interfering in management decisions and influencing appointments of staff members".

The council had undermined governing structures and Cameron had presided over fee increases and endorsed massive "financial and academic exclusions of mainly poor and black students".

In response, the university said it had robust governance procedures for the appointment and selection of its representatives.

Cameron's term of office expires at the end of next month. But he could remain a council member until May 2009.

Council members are nominated on the basis of their expertise and standing in the community.

"The university has made significant progress in transformation and in its quest to become an academically excellent and transformed institution. Student finance is a priority project at Wits," said the university. - Sapa